MIKEI feel like locking my legs together and putting a protective hand over my junk when I knock on the door, but I maintain a normal stance. If Sharon wants to walk out and belt me again, I’m going to have to take it—and take it with a smile. And maybe be smart enough to see it coming this time and get out of the way.The door creaks open, and one sapphire-hued eye peeks through. When she sees it’s me, there’s a huff and a groan then the door reluctantly slides open a few more inches. Since my T-shirt got soaked the night before, she’s wound herself up in the quilt, draping it over her body until she looks like a mummified sausage roll. Her eyes widen when they sweep down my length. Yup, I went full-on wolf this morning, even if looking like a sheep would have been better. I’m wearing my regular black attire a pressed, tailored twenty four hundred dollarMM suit and shined shoes. I look like I’m getting ready to rock a conference room, though the thought of me stepping into an office

I’m done,” Ransom says suddenly, jerking me from my thoughts. He’s holding up his clean plate as though it needs to be inspected. “Can I get the gifts now?”He’s so excited that I’m starting to get a bad feeling about said gifts.Granny sighs. “Alright, alright. Go ahead.”The guy shoots back from the table like he’s just been shot out of a cannon. He rushes off and returns a few minutes later with all manner of shopping bags, which he sets right by my side. I’m so shocked that my fork drops from my hand.I have men watching your parents’ house,” Granny says softly. “They’re safe, but right now, it isn’t safe for you to be out and about, and it’s not okay for us to go to your place and get any of your things. Kidnapping you wasn’t my plan….” She gives Mike a dirty look that I fully second. “But now that it happened, you can’t go around wearing the same set of clothes, so I asked the boys to go out and get you the things you’d need. I laundered your clothing last night, so I knew your

How so?” Mike’s frown digs deep trenches into his brow. I think it’s basic human nature and concern that causes me to want to reach over and smooth them away. “Living at home—if I could use that word because it wasn’t a home at all—was…it was…not fun. It was the opposite of fun. My father… well, I’d liken him to the devil, but that would be doing Satan a serious disservice. I don’t think the devil himself could be as bad as my father was. I saw him do terrible things to other people. Other men. But never women. Unless that woman was my mother, though he never hit her. He was too controlled for that. Instead, he controlled her in every other way possible. She was like a puppet, a zombie, doing what he wanted. She was strung out on prescription meds to make her biddable, but also probably because it was the only way she could survive getting through the day. I imagine she thought about killing herself just to escape. All the time. She never intervened in my father’s business, and to her

And nope, I’m not crouched down over here by the door, admiring his body. Which is, uh, so obviously a ten that it makes my mouth water and turns my nipples into diamond peaks. Damn it. It’s not my fault. His naked chest is just so potently beautiful that I can’t not notice. Also, it’s about as bright red as it gets. Gleaming, glistening, and drawing my attention hook, line, and sinker. My body is on the highest of red alerts alright, so maybe that’s also a good way to describe his chest and I realize I’m slowly sinking into a moment of madness, round two.“Manscaping?” I choke out just to say something. My eyes slingshot up to his face, away from the danger zone, which is pretty much everywhere below the neck.“I was, uh, I didn’t think body hair was attractive. I didn’t anticipate this happening, or I would have prepared before. Now it seems I’ve ruined everything.”He’s so miserable when he says it that it makes me smile, and then I feel like a royal jerk. “I’m not laughing at you,

I told you the crying wolf thing was going to get you in trouble one day,” I say, trying to be playful, though my voice is still full of very real concern that is in no way an act.Mike grunts, but he does manage a small smile that I feel is just for me. And dang, if that smile doesn’t light up every corner of a world I didn’t know was so very, very dark before.“Are we ready to continue?” The frazzled JP, who I had forgotten about completely, finally steps back toward us. He snaps open his binder and winces like it’s going to trigger a second big fall.Mike grasps my hands again. Both of them. What do you know? It’s official. The storm of butterflies in my gut has turned into a full-on murder of crows. That’s what a group of crows is called, in case you didn’t know. A murder. Very, very interesting.I’m ready.” Mike squeezes my hand. The squeeze goes up through my arm and explodes to the rest of my body.I have to squeeze back. It’s just another instinct, and it’s polite, the right t